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The overlapping COVID-19 crisis and the war starting in 2022 threaten front-line healthcare workers' mental health, well-being and job retention in Ukraine. This paper provides a synopsis of a panel discussion held by the Global Mental Health Humanitarian Coalition in May 2022 and expert consultations with clinicians between December 2022 and February 2023 on these challenges. The crises created new problems and exacerbated many pre-existing difficulties. We found that healthcare workers had needed to mobilise previously untapped strengths, including portable emergency medical documents and bespoke local psychosocial support services, amid the costs and pressures of ongoing healthcare reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to develop a new typology of revisionism based on the nature of the aims (territorial/normative/hierarchy of prestige), the means employed (peaceful/violent), and the level of action (regional/global). This will then be used to explain the escalation of Russia's foreign policy from regional to global claims with reference to its military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria and to identify the type of revisionism involved in each of the three Russian military interventions undertaken both inside (Georgia and Ukraine) and outside (Syria) the post-soviet space. The paper is divided into three parts. The first examines the concept of revisionism and suggests a new classification of six types in relation to the means, nature, and level of the claims put forward by revisionist powers. The second discusses the interventions carried out by Russia within its regional area (in Georgia and Ukraine). The third analyses the intervention in Syria and highlights the escalation of Russian claims from the regional to the global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains the causes of the Russia–Ukraine war starting in 2014 from the energy and energy markets perspective, based on resource dependency theory and the conceptual framework outlined by Jeffrey D. Colgan (2013). Our findings reveal that Russia is critically dependent on revenue from gas exports to Ukraine and the European Union, but also that Ukraine's energy deposits and pipeline system have the potential to be a direct competitive threat to Russia's energy exports. This paper argues that this was the underlying reason and main causal pathway leading to Russia's annexation of Crimea and the subsequent war in eastern Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the development of a capacity-building programme to support a mental health service modernisation pilot project based in the Lviv region of Western Ukraine. National programmes that aim to modernise mental health services now have the experience of other countries on which to draw. The challenges faced by such modernisers have much in common. Nevertheless, although there are lessons to be learned from what has worked well elsewhere, we caution that the local context can have a profound effect on the successful implementation of plans based on best practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new series of 19 radiocarbon dates provides new insights on the human settlement activity in central Ukraine. The paper presents data from the Early Holocene until the establishment of Trypillian mega-sites in the late Vth mill. BC. Our new dates from a long sequence of the site of Melnychna Krucha refine the chronology of the Middle and Late Mesolithic and local ceramic-bearing "Buh-Dniester" culture. Additional dates were obtained on bones from Linear Pottery culture sites and Trypillian sites of stages A3 and B1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the psychological and behavioral impacts of exposure to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) during the war in Ukraine. Topics covered include lessons from historical WMD events in Japan, the importance of communication and collaboration between physical and mental health services, and the challenges faced by healthcare workers during such events.

This paper represents an attempt to study national identity in the post-Soviet context through the lens of everyday life practices. Building on ideas of banal nationalism and consumer citizenship, and with support of empirical evidence collected in L'viv, Ukraine, this paper demonstrates how national identity becomes materialized in everyday life through consumption practices and objects of consumption. While exploring objects and practices that are not originally national in scope but infused with national meanings by ordinary people, it will be shown how consumption becomes an arena for the expression and renegotiation of national self-portraits. Differences in national meanings among residents of L’viv belonging to two different language groups will highlight the diversity of ways and means by which people express their national sensibilities. By exploring national meanings in everyday consumption practices of Ukrainian citizens, this study aims to provide an alternative perspective on post-Soviet nation-building and contribute to the current debate on the position and identity of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A non-linear reaction–diffusion system with cross-diffusion describing the COVID-19 outbreak is studied using the Lie symmetry method. A complete Lie symmetry classification is derived and it is shown that the system with correctly specified parameters admits highly non-trivial Lie symmetry operators, which do not occur for all known reaction–diffusion systems. The symmetries obtained are also applied for finding exact solutions of the system in the most interesting case from applicability point of view. It is shown that the exact solutions derived possess typical properties for describing the pandemic spread under 1D approximation in space and lead to the distributions, which qualitatively correspond to the measured data of the COVID-19 spread in Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Russian occupation policy in Ukraine as an adaptive tactic of Russia's grand strategy and a manifestation of its military culture. Based on a comparative analysis of the Russian occupation policy during the hybrid and conventional stages of the Russian-Ukrainian war, including the employment of a de facto state playbook, we find both continuity and shifts in Russia's approach. Although the main shift lies in the change of Russia's conflict management in neighboring countries from reactive to proactive, the main continuities are the subordination of occupation policy to Russia's geostrategic interests and path dependence in its military culture, which together lead to the employment of brutal violence against civilians and the demodernization of occupied territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of the spatial distribution of reptiles is essential for decision-making in conservation under future climate change scenarios. We present a new compilation of reptile records for Odesa Oblast (i.e. province), south-west Ukraine. We compiled 662 records: 200 from our own research during 2012–2022, 362 from the published literature, 73 from public databases and 27 from museum collections. Fourteen native species of reptile (one species of Emydidae, four of Lacertidae, one of Anguidae, six of Colubridae and two of Viperidae) have been recorded in Odesa Oblast but the distribution of several are poorly known and/or records have rarely been published. We also report four introduced reptile species (one each of Emydidae, Gekkonidae, Lacertidae and Anguidae). We present the data in a grid of 462 10 × 10 km cells covering the oblast. In this compilation we did not record any new species, but our records include previously unreported localities for some species. Species richness was highest in the areas along the Black Sea, in protected areas. The main threats to the reptiles in Odesa Oblast are the alteration and degradation of habitats, military action, uncontrolled pressure from infrastructure projects and the presence of invasive species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: There are an estimated 1.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine because of the armed conflict in the east of the country. The aim of this paper is to examine utilisation patterns of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) care among IDPs in Ukraine. Methods: A cross-sectional survey design was used. Data were collected from 2203 adult IDPs throughout Ukraine between March and May 2016. Data on mental health care utilisation were collected, along with outcomes including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety. Descriptive and multivariate regression analyses were used. Results: PTSD prevalence was 32%, depression prevalence was 22%, and anxiety prevalence was 17%. Among those that likely required care (screened positive with one of the three disorders, and also self-reporting a problem) there was a large treatment gap, with 74% of respondents who likely required MHPSS care over the past 12 months not receiving it. For the 26% (N = 180) that had sought care, the most common sources of services/support were pharmacies, family or district doctor/paramedic (feldsher), neurologist at a polyclinic, internist/neurologist at a general hospital, psychologists visiting communities, and non-governmental organisations/volunteer mental health/psychosocial centres. Of the 180 respondents who did seek care, 163 could recall whether they had to pay for their care. Of these 163 respondents, 72 (44%) recalled paying for the care they received despite government care officially being free in Ukraine. The average costs they paid for care was US$107 over the previous 12 months. All 180 respondents reported having to pay for medicines and the average costs for medicines was US$109 over the previous 12 months. Among the 74% had not sought care despite likely needing it; the principal reasons for not seeking care were: thought that they would get better by using their own medications, could not afford to pay for health services or medications, no awareness of where to receive help, poor understanding by health care providers, poor quality of services, and stigma/embarrassment. The findings from multivariate regression analysis show the significant influence of a poor household economic situation on not accessing care. Conclusions: The study highlights a high burden of mental disorders and large MHPSS treatment gap among IDPs in Ukraine. The findings support the need for a scaled-up, comprehensive and trauma-informed response to provision of MHPSS care of IDPs in Ukraine alongside broader health system strengthening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 is widely framed as an outside-in process, not only enabled but also enacted by the Kremlin. Prevailing accounts privilege geopolitical analysis and place those developments in a broader narrative of tension and competition between the West and Russia. Such a narrative downplays the involvement of local actors and the importance of the choices they made prior to and during those events. This article revisits the period leading up to March 2014 through a focus on critical junctures, critical antecedents, a near miss, and the path not taken. It argues that a full account of Crimea's incorporation into Russia – while acknowledging Moscow's role – cannot ignore the local contingencies that preceded and shaped it. We understand the region's annexation as a key moment of institutional change in Ukraine and focus our attention on explaining how that outcome was determined, identifying the path to such a political outcome. Yanukovych's decision to "catapult" political-economic interest groups from Makeevka and Donetsk into the peninsula led to the marginalization of the local elite. Regime change in Kyiv and a slow and cumbersome response from the new authorities in February-March 2014 triggered, but did not cause, Crimea's exit option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among various features of Ukrainian society that the world has started paying more attention to since the beginning of Russia's full-blown invasion in February 2022, many commentators have pointed to a surprisingly strong and encompassing national identity. However, scholars of Ukrainian language and identity matters had for years demonstrated an increased civic attachment of Ukrainian citizens, including Russian speakers, and its greater salience compared with ethnic, linguistic, and regional identifications. This article seeks to highlight the main accomplishments and challenges of research on Ukrainian ethnic and national identity. It focuses on a gradual shift from the essentialist understanding of ethnicity as embodied in bounded groups to the interest in individuals' contextually determined identifications by categories with a changing meaning. Another prominent part of the analysis is the relationship between Ukrainian ethnic and national identity and the amalgamation of these two apparently distinct phenomena into what I propose to call ethnonational identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a comparison with Ukraine to investigate why protests against Lukashenka in 2020 failed to oust the Belarusian dictator. First, in contrast to his counterparts in Ukraine, Lukashenka successfully built new authoritarian economic and coercive institutions in the 1990s that raised the costs of opposition activity and reduced challengers' access to business support. Second, Belarus has lacked a strong national identity that was critical to opposition success in Ukraine. In Ukraine, relatively powerful anti-Russian nationalism repeatedly motivated a core group of anti-incumbent activists and facilitated the opposition's control over local power structures that supported protest activities at critical moments. In Belarus, weak national identity and consequent dearth of committed activists in national government institutions in the 1990s hampered efforts to challenge Lukashenka's consolidation of authoritarian power. In addition, weaker national identity undermined the capacity of opposition forces to control local power structures that might have aided opposition protest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of the current decline or spectacular collapse of peace processes, this article investigates whether peace has become systematically blocked. It investigates whether the ineffectiveness of an 'international peace architecture' (IPA) can be explained by a more potent counterpeace system, which is growing in its shadow. It identifies counterpeace as proto-systemic processes that connect spoilers across all scales (local, regional, national, transnational), while exploiting structural blockages to peace and unintended consequences of peace interventions. It elaborates three distinct patterns of blockages to peace in contemporary conflicts across the globe: the stalemate, limited counterpeace, and unmitigated counterpeace. Drawing on the counterrevolution literature, this research asks: Have peace interventions become the source of their own undoing? Which factors consolidate or aggravate emerging conflict patterns? Are blockages to peace systemic enough to construct a sedimentary and layered counterpeace edifice? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have investigated why countries adopt gender quotas for their elections. In this article, we answer a different question: why do political parties comply with gender quotas when the costs of noncompliance are absent or minimal? To answer this question, we analyze data from 1,600 party lists and 106 parties competing across 121 cities in the 2015 municipal elections in Ukraine. Our subnational approach tests whether contextual factors flagged by the broader gender literature explain variation in compliance across localities. The results of our models support our contention that Ukrainian political parties behaved strategically in terms of nominations and quota compliance. We find that urbanization and female incumbency fueled quota compliance. Parties, however, were less likely to comply with quotas in cities with more Ukrainian speakers. We suggest that the politics of memory explain this outcome, as Ukrainian speakers are more likely to remember of the costs of Soviet rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current scholarship suggests that Neo-Eneolithic systems of settlement and subsistence in Eastern Europe were defined by short-to-medium range migration, while sparsely populated land in peripheral regions allowed for the continual colonization of new territories. We address the Eastern Tripolye Culture (ETC), a sub-group of the Cucuteni-Tripolye cultural complex that flourished ca. 4300–2950 BC by expanding into the forest-steppe ecozone of Central Ukraine. While a general lack of multi-layer sites complicates regional chronology, we resolve several longstanding questions in Ukrainian archaeological discourse by combining traditional relative chronologies of ceramic types with high-precision AMS dating of material from key sites. We offer a revision of the chronology of Tripolye BI and BI-II, which, rather than consisting of distinct "early" and "late" temporal periods, instead constitute a single period characterized by stylistic diversity in material culture. With an absolute chronology established, we then analyze the space-time distribution of sites, revealing a southwest-to-northeast migratory vector across Central Ukraine characterized by punctuated episodes of "leapfrog" colonization. The establishment of this vector by the ETC presages larger-scale population movements by the Western Tripolye Culture (WTC), which led to the establishment of the giant-settlement phenomenon during the first part of the 4th millennium BC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Subjective well-being incorporates elements of life satisfaction, happiness and optimism. It is increasingly relevant in the assessment of population health and economic development. There are strong continuities in well-being from youth into later life. Despite its significance, few global surveys capture subjective well-being. This paper describes patterns of well-being among young people in five Eastern European countries [Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine] and investigates association between demographic factors and well-being. Methods. Nationally representative household surveys, including large Roma population samples, were conducted as part of UNICEF's Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey programme. Young people aged 15-24 years (N = 11 944) indicated their satisfaction with life, happiness and expectations about the future. Multilevel logistic regressions were conducted to determine the impact of individual-level predictors while accounting for country- and cluster-level variability. Results. Around 40% of young people considered themselves very happy or very satisfied with their life overall. Three quarters reported optimism. Yet well-being varied greatly between countries, with youth in BiH and Ukraine reporting lowest levels of well-being. Current marriage, increasing wealth, higher education, rural residence and not having children were associated with greater well-being. Conclusions. Patterns of well-being in youth vary substantially between countries and are only partly accounted for by standard demographic characteristics. Despite higher rates of adolescent marriage and childbearing, and lower levels of educational attainment and employment, Roma youth had similar levels of well-being to the general population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The war in Donbas led some observers to speculate that this event might threaten intergroup relations in Ukraine. While studies in the 1990s indicated relatively positive attitudes between the different ethnic and linguistic groups, it has not been analyzed systematically how these attitudes have developed over time. Such an analysis contributes to our general understanding as to how war and nation-building politics affect attitudes toward minorities. Analyzing survey data from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology from 1995 to 2018 using multivariate statistical methods, I show that the prejudice toward Russian-speaking Ukrainians – measured using the social distance scale – has increased since 2014, when both the war and Poroshenko's presidency began, although the rise is rather small. A likely explanation to this phenomenon is the perceived link between Russian speakers and Russia as the aggressor in the war. The fact that Yushchenko's presidency (2006–2009) did not result in a similar increase of negative sentiments, despite similarities between Yushchenko's and Poroshenko's identity politics, allows me to suggest that the higher level of prejudice under Poroshenko cannot be solely explained by the political rhetoric promoting an ethnic Ukrainian identity. However, the interplay of political rhetoric and war might have been relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Ukraine, as was the case across occupied Europe, while most residents of any given locality divided into bystanders, collaborators, and accomplices during the Holocaust, a minority turned to rescue work. Faith-motivated rescue work by large institutions or individuals representing prominent branches of Christianity is well documented; its prevalence exemplifies the critical role that the altruism of individual members of the clergy, laity, and religious orders played in the survival of many Jews. However, rescuers from less prominent denominations of Christianity, amongst them Baptists, Evangelicals, Seventh-day Adventists, and Sabbatarians, are less spoken about, although these rescuers were often equally as motivated to rescue and more poorly resourced to do so due to disadvantageous political circumstances. Some scholars suggest that it was their "underdog" identity that made such groups empathize with persecuted Jews, but primary testimony offers an even more intriguing perspective: it was the philo-Semitic underpinnings of some members of the minority Protestant denominations in question that provided a broad theological basis for rescuing Jews, transcending the sociopolitical phenomenon of the common underdog mentality and even more widespread ecumenical obligations for being a good Christian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Soviet system of territorial autonomy by studying its impact on the Jewish population of Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s. While the new Soviet state created national republics, districts, and village councils for its non-Russian nationalities, Ukraine's Jewish population was faced with a dilemma: Ukrainian Jews lived predominantly in cities, but urban space could not be claimed for Jewish territorial autonomy because the Soviet government hoped that peasant immigration would produce a Ukrainian working class. Without an autonomous status, many Jews felt threatened by the increasing influx of Ukrainians and the spread of Ukrainian-language institutions. Offered as a consolation prize, the Soviet Yiddishization initiative failed to cater to the needs of many Jews who preferred the Russian language as a means for social mobility. Attempts to resettle urban Jews in compact agricultural colonies suitable for territorial autonomy never reached the necessary scale. In conclusion, this article argues that the incompatibility of Soviet territorial autonomy with Ukrainian Jewish needs anticipated the Soviet state's inability to accommodate the increasingly urban, heterogeneous, transnational, multilingual, and mobile society that emerged in the postwar Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wish from 24 February 2022 onwards to help Ukraine defend against Russian aggression has led to the provision of unprecedented lethal European Union (EU) military assistance. As the 'taboo' of supplying lethal assistance into non-EU conflicts is swept aside, what is the role of international arms control law? The legal requirements of the EU Common Position on arms exports and the Arms Trade Treaty compel EU Member States to assess various short- and long-term risks associated with arms exports. But it is unclear how arms control norms are being taken into account by the EU Council in its rapidly evolving role as a peacemaker. The standards that are being used to shape EU decision-making on Ukraine matter both for their precedent-setting as reflecting the trajectory of EU normative power, as well as on the long-term blowbacks of proliferation on illicit arms trafficking. While from the EU Council, there has been limited public articulation of these risks, greater consideration thereof would serve as a reminder of the reality of post-conflict arms proliferation, ie. illicit arms trafficking of weapons leached from the conflict, and their subsequent misuse by undesirable actors. Geostrategic precedent is being set, with implications that extend far beyond Ukraine, including to other conflicts where the EU is already intervening. The EU's delivering of massive lethal military assistance alters also the reflexive perception of its institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than six years, Ukrainian society has been constantly searching for ideas as to how to write a new "national biography." In a society divided by armed conflict, the so-called decommunization process is considered to be an idea capable of uniting a nation. This process started back in 2015, with the passing of a specific law that required not only the deconstruction of Soviet-time monuments in public spaces, but also a huge decommunization of place names. The article will explore the main practices of place (re-)naming during the different stages of the decommunization (but not de-ideologization) of spaces, as well as describing the problems that may emerge in society as a result of a rapid transition from one narrative to another. Based on a case study of spatial identities of internally displaced people, I am going to answer the question of how people perceive renamed spaces, and how they reclaim and re-appropriate these spaces in the midst of an identity crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The short-lived Ukrainian armed volunteer movement and its interaction with electoral politics, in some regards did, and in other regards, did not fit patterns observed in research into irregular armed groups (IAGs). The brief life span of most Ukrainian IAGs as more or less independent actors, and their swift integration into Ukraine's regular forces during the years 2014–2015, were both unusual. They were also one of the reasons for the relatively low political impact of the IAGs as such - a repercussion that is in contrast to the partly impressive individual political careers of some IAG commanders in 2014–2019. There were various forms of interpenetration of parties with IAGs in post-Euromaidan Ukraine. Certain parties, political activists, and MPs took part in the creation and development of IAGs in 2014. Some – to that point, mostly minor - politicians became soldiers or commanders of IAGs. Subsequently, a number of IAG members transited into the party-political realm, either joining older parties or creating new political organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I summarize the justification for Ukrainian state sovereignty, in spite of Russia's claim of the non-existence of such sovereignty. The Russians invaded Ukraine claiming their right to justify their interests. The occupation of Crimea by Russian forces and their declaration of its annexation to Russia was an act of aggression disapproved of by the United Nations (2014). I also outline the nature of the limited war between Ukraine and Russia that is managed by ethnic Russians living in the Donbas region and Russian emissaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article evaluates the role of community bonds in the long-term transmission of political values. At the end of World War II, Poland's borders shifted westward, and the population from the historical region of Galicia (now partly in Ukraine) was displaced to the territory that Poland acquired from Germany. In a quasi-random process, some migrants settled in their new villages as a majority group, preserving communal ties, while others ended up in the minority. The study leverages this natural experiment of history by surveying the descendants of these Galician migrants. The research design provides an important empirical test of the theorized effect of communities on long-term value transmission, which separates the influence of family and community as two competing and complementary mechanisms. The study finds that respondents in Galicia-majority settlements are now more likely to embrace values associated with Austrian imperial rule and are more similar to respondents whose families avoided displacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article theorises the nexus between mnemonical status anxiety and militant memory laws. Extending the understanding of status-seeking in international relations to the realm of historical memory, I argue that the quest for mnemonical recognition is a status struggle in an international social hierarchy of remembering constitutive events of the past. A typology of mnemopolitical status-seeking is presented on the example of Russia (mnemonical positionalism), Poland (mnemonical revisionism), and Ukraine (mnemonical self-emancipation). Memory laws provide a common instance of securing and/or improving a state's mnemonical standing in the relevant memory order. Drawing on the conceptual analogy of militant democracy, the article develops the notion militant memocracy, or the governance of historical memory through a dense network of prescribing and proscribing memory laws and policies. Similar to its militant democracy counterpart, militant memocracy is in danger of self-inflicted harm to the object of defence in the very effort to defend it: its precautionary and punitive measures resound rather than fix the state's mnemonical anxiety problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article elucidates the role of historians in times of war and the peculiarities of popular history narratives written by historians who became activists. The article focuses on historians who call themselves "Likbez. Historical Front." This cohort gave rise to a new professional species—activist historians—who are different from so called memorians or propagandists, who work in service of authorities. Likbez historians tried to use their power to influence and promote their activist agenda not only in the realm of memory and history but also in reformation of state institutions. I argue that for Likbez historians, securitization of the past is the main strategy employed for producing historical knowledge. Historians' work is a part of postcolonizing process observed in Ukrainian society since the Maidan protests. As the analysis shows, popular history narratives written with an open activist agenda are a result of many compromises made by scholars in the intersection of several factors: professional ambitions, political and civic aims, social and political context, popular expectations, and market environment. In line with the increased attention to agency in memory studies, this article demonstrates that historians have a much more nuanced relation to power than straightforward opposition or co-option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognizing the need for organizational change in a transition setting, we specify a research model entailing the effects of two important workplace variables on the relationship between dispositional resistance to change and organizational commitment. Organizational commitment is important because of its relationship with a host of considerations relevant to successful organizational change and development. We test the model with samples from four Ukrainian firms undergoing comparable substantive change, including in their human resource systems. The results indicate that the negative relationship between resistance to change and organization commitment is moderated by trust in management. Specifically, it is the lack of trust that exacerbates the negative influence of resistance to change on commitment. Also, high procedural justice strengthens the negative relationship, thereby reducing organizational commitment, an interesting divergence from the Western literature. These indigenous findings in a markedly different context from the West hold potential for theory that is richer and more comprehensive in its explanatory reach. The findings also provide useful insights for managers in Ukraine in their efforts to change organizational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fatyanovo Culture, together with its eastern twin, the Balanovo Culture, forms part of the pan-European Corded Ware Complex. Within that complex, it represents its eastern expansion to the catchment of the Upper and Middle Volga River in the European part of Russia. Its immediate roots are to be found in the southern Baltic States, Belarus, and northern Ukraine (the Baltic and Middle-Dnepr Corded Ware Cultures), from where moving people spread the culture further east along the river valleys of the forested flatlands. By doing so, they introduced animal husbandry to these regions. Fatyanovo Culture is predominately recognised through its material culture imbedded in its mortuary practices. Most aspects of every-day life remain unknown. The lack of an adequate absolute chronological framework has thus far prevented the verification of its internal cultural dynamics while overall interaction proposed also on typo-stratigraphical grounds suggests a contemporaneity with other representations of the Corded Ware Complex in Europe. Fatyanovo Culture is formed by the reverse movement to the (north-)east of the Corded Ware Complex, itself established in the aftermath of the westbound spread of Yamnaya populations from the steppes. It thus represents an important link between west and east, pastoralists and last hunter-gatherers, and the 3rd and the 2nd millennia bc. Through its descendants (including Abashevo, Sintashta, and Andronovo Cultures) it becomes a key component in the development of the wider cultural landscape of Bronze Age Eurasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the first published ethnographic map of Ukraine, which appeared in Lviv in 1861. While carefully analyzing new archival and published sources from both the Habsburg and Romanov empires, it puts this map into the wider context of a contemporary Ukrainian national movement. I argue that Russian Ukrainian activists of 1860s were unquestionably interested in the extent of Ukrainian national territory and had handwritten maps of Ukrainian national territory in their possession. Contrary to the conventional narratives that the 1861 map was drawn in Lviv by Mykhailo Kossak, I argue instead that the map could have been produced by the Russian Ukrainian activist, Mykhailo Levchenko, and was later transferred to Galicia for publication. Stipulating the need to account for sources from both the Romanov and Habsburg empires—studying both cartographic and textual sources—I argue that similar studies should necessarily be located at the juncture of history of cartography and the intellectual history of mental mapping. Only such approach will provide an undistorted picture of a process of national territorialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article covers the preconditions, causes, and consequences of the famine of 1921–1923 and of the Holodomor of 1932–1933. Significant attention is paid to the geography and scale of the famine. For the first time in the historiography of the famine of 1921–1923, a thorough assessment is conducted of the demographic loss of population for Ukraine as a whole, seven oblasts, and the Moldova Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR). A comparative analysis of the research results of the 1921–1923 famine and the Holodomor of 1932–1933 is presented. The discussion consists of three parts. The first part addresses the famine of 1921–1923. It examines the historico-political and economic context of the famine, its scale, and its uneven effect on different parts of the country. Special attention is paid to the sanitary-epidemiological situation which was closely tied to the famine itself. The second part is devoted to the Holodomor of 1932–1933. A comparative analysis of losses during the famines of 1921–1923 and 1932–1933 is presented in the third part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Holodomor in Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 was a result of the collectivization policy of the Soviet government and took approximately 4 million lives. The Holodomor had a profound impact on the entire population of Ukraine. It badly affected the lives of Jews in Kyiv and Ukraine, and it damaged Jewish–gentile relations for many years. The famine occurred not only in rural areas, but also in the cities and towns of Ukraine. The Holodomor provoked a significant migration of Jews from shtetls to the large cities, particularly to Kyiv. Many desperate inhabitants of villages and towns fled to the large cities where they hoped to receive some aid. However, the overcrowded cities could not accommodate this flood of migrants. Anatolii Kuznetsov wrote in Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel that if not for the Holodomor in Ukraine and Stalin's repressions of the 1930s, the attitude of the Kyiv gentile population toward the Holocaust would perhaps have been different. People had gotten so used to the suffering of others, victims of the famine and political repression, that they remained mainly passive, silent, and indifferent toward the mass execution of Jews in Babi Yar during the Holocaust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To determine current status, areas for improvement and effect of conflict on infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices among internally displaced persons (IDP) in eastern Ukraine.Design: Cross-sectional household survey, June 2015.Setting: Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia oblasts (Ukrainian administrative divisions) bordering conflict area in Ukraine.Subjects: Randomly selected IDP households with children aged <2 years registered with local non-governmental organizations. Questions based on the WHO IYCF assessment questionnaire were asked for 477 children. Mid-upper arm circumference was measured in 411 children aged 6-23 months.Results: Exclusive breast-feeding prevalence for infants aged <6 months was 25·8 (95 % CI 15·8, 38·0) %. Percentage of mothers continuing breast-feeding when their child was aged 1 and 2 years was 53·5 (95 % CI 43·2, 63·6) % and 20·6 (95 % CI 11·5, 32·7) %, respectively. Bottle-feeding was common for children aged <2 years (68·1 %; 95 % CI 63·7, 72·3 %). Almost all infants aged 6-8 months received solid foods (98·6 %; 95 % CI 88·5, 99·9 %). Mothers who discontinued breast-feeding before their infant was 6 months old more often listed stress related to conflict as their primary reason for discontinuation (45·7 %) compared with mothers who discontinued breast-feeding when their child was aged 6-23 months (14·3 %; P<0·0001).Conclusions: To mitigate the effects of conflict and improve child health, humanitarian action is needed focused on helping mothers cope with stress related to conflict and displacement while supporting women to adhere to recommended IYCF practices if possible and providing appropriate support to women when adherence is not feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The present humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is putting strains on its healthcare system. This study aimed to assess services and training in otolaryngology, audiology and speech therapy in Ukraine and its geographical neighbours. Method: Survey study of 327 otolaryngologists from 19 countries. Results: Fifty-six otolaryngologists (17 per cent) from 15 countries responded. Numbers of otolaryngologists varied from 3.6 to 12.3 per 100 000 population (Ukraine = 7.8). Numbers of audiologists varied from 0, in Ukraine, to 2.8 per 100 000, in Slovakia, and numbers of speech therapists varied from 0, in Bulgaria, to 4.0 per 100 000, in Slovenia (Ukraine = 0.1). Ukraine lacks newborn and school hearing screening, good availability of otological drills and microscopes, and a cochlear implant programme. Conclusion: There is wide variation in otolaryngology services in Central and Eastern Europe. All countries surveyed had more otolaryngologists per capita than the UK, but availability of audiology and speech and language therapy is poor. Further research on otolaryngology health outcomes in the region will guide service improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the status of difficult historic events in Ukrainian collective memory. Difficult elements of collective memory are defined as those which divide society on basic matters, such as identity and national cohesion, and events which are being actively forgotten because of the role of Ukrainians as perpetrators. Three such issues were analyzed: World War II and the role of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Holocaust, and the ethnic purge of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943–1945. Utilizing data from quantitative and qualitative studies, the author showcases the significance of these issues for contemporary Ukrainian identity and Ukraine’s relations with its neighbors. In particular, the evaluation of World War II and the role of the UPA in Ukrainian history polarizes Ukrainian society to a great degree. At the same time, this element of national history is used to construct a common, anti-Russian identity. The difficulty of relating to the memory of the Holocaust and the ethnic purge in Volhynia is of a different character. These events are problematic for Ukrainian collective memory because they demand a painful settling of accounts with the past. At present, only Ukrainian elites are willing to work on these subjects, and only to a limited degree, while the common consciousness either denies or ignores them altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While cause lawyering has attracted abundant scholarly attention, the factors contributing to such movements in nondemocratic environments remain understudied. This article evaluates existing explanations of strategic litigation and finds that emphases on legal opportunity structure and resource mobilization overlook cases where litigation is used to expose and challenge existing constraints. This inductive study of revolutionary Ukraine shows that litigation is pursued despite unfavorable legal opportunity structure and may be triggered by state repression, rather than constrained by it. I argue that a democratic revolutionary movement in the country offered the necessary social resources for cause lawyers to succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Panel Report in Ukraine–Passenger Cars provides an opportunity to revisit an old debate over the role of safeguard measures in the WTO. With regard to the legal findings, the Panel followed the established jurisprudence in this area, and found a number of violations of the Safeguards Agreement. With regard to the economics, we delve more deeply into the economic and political background of the safeguards investigation. Ukraine was hit by the economic crisis shortly after its WTO accession that significantly liberalized import tariffs on passenger cars. Next, we offer a de novo look at the injury and causation issues in this case, and discuss the challenges of an industry reliant on offshored production that sees a safeguard as a mechanism to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) for production. We conclude with an assessment of the operation of the WTO's safeguards regime, along with some tentative suggestions for reform. Overall, our examination of the economic analysis by the investigating authority and the legal review by the WTO Panel raises questions about particular aspects of the domestic and WTO processes, but concludes that the system worked well in this case. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article contributes to the communities of practice (CoP) literature by focusing on the neglected role of the boundary in constructing community. It takes issue with advocates of International Relations’ (IR) most recent ‘practice turn’ who have overrated inclusive practices of linking to the detriment of taking account of exclusive practices of demarcation. A conceptual turn to the boundary, understood as a ‘site of difference’, highlights how the two sets of practices operate simultaneously in creating shared senses of belonging to a community. The article empirically probes this turn to the boundary by studying how the postmodern community of the European Union (EU) is (re)constructed by EU diplomats in its neighbouring state Ukraine. As a borderland, it symbolises an interstitial zone of high connectivity where the EU’s otherwise latent order is unearthed. A reconstructive analysis of interviews with members of this ‘community of practice’ reveals that they function as ‘boundary workers’ who engage in both boundary-spanning and boundary-drawing practices on an everyday basis. Zooming in on the ‘boundary work’ by EU diplomats exposes the complex process of community-building and thereby helps grasp community as an emergent structure of possibilities whose meaning is contextually mediated by its members’ social experience of the boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How effective is Russian state television in framing the conflict in Ukraine that began with the Euromaidan protests and what is its impact on Russian Internet users? We carried out a content analysis of Dmitrii Kiselev's “News of the Week” show, which allowed us to identify the two key frames he used to explain the conflict – World War II-era fascism and anti-Americanism. Since Kiselev often reduces these frames to buzzwords, we were able to track the impact of these words on Internet users by examining search query histories on Yandex and Google and by developing quantitative data to complement our qualitative analysis. Our findings show that much of what state media produces is not effective, but that the “fascist” and anti-American frames have had lasting impacts on Russian Internet users. We argue that it does not make sense to speak of competition between a “television party” and an “Internet party” in Russia since state television has a strong impact in setting the agenda for the Internet and society as a whole. Ultimately, the relationship between television and the Internet in Russia is a continual loop, with each affecting the other. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As the Soviet Union disintegrated and eventually dissolved in 1991, many of its peoples, both so-called titular nationalities and national minorities, put forth demands for independence or, at the very least, self-rule for territories that were said to represent the national patrimony. Among the many peoples who put forward such demands were Carpatho-Rusyns, who, together with fellow citizens of other national backgrounds, demanded autonomy or self-rule for the region (oblast) of Transcarpathia in far western Ukraine. This essay examines from a historical perspective the question of autonomy or self-rule for Carpatho-Rusyns and for all or part of the territory they inhabit, historic Carpathian Rus’. The autonomy question in Carpathian Rus’ is hardly new, but one that goes as far back as 1848. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyzes the early stage of the Ukrainian “sixtiers” movement as a semi-autonomous space of cultural expression that was tolerated by the authorities and defined, developed, and inhabited by young Ukrainian intellectuals. In contrast to present-day Ukrainian representations of the sixtiers as a force acting in opposition to the Soviet regime, the spatial angle employed here reveals an ambiguous relationship with official institutions. The Ukrainian Komsomol organization in particular appears to be both a controlling and an enabling agent that, together with the Writers' Union, provided meeting venues for the sixtiers until the mid-1960s. This complex symbiotic relationship continued even after some creative youth pioneered the first attempts to claim public space for cultural events without the authorities' permission. The cultural terrain inhabited by young Ukrainian intellectuals was not fully separate from mainstream Soviet Ukrainian culture or in opposition to it, although their vibrant cultural space also reached into a world of non-conformist culture unregulated by the state. A series of government crackdowns beginning in the mid-1960s dramatically shrank this open, ambivalent space of semi-free cultural expression, imposing firm boundaries and forcing intellectuals to make political choices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the current heroization of Ukrainian nationalist leader, Stepan Bandera, as manifested in monuments and commemorative practices. It offers a topographic survey that reveals the extent and variety of modes of Bandera heroization. It examines the esthetic and historical controversies that surround Bandera memorialization. It enquires into the personal motivations and political strategies that underlie the effort to project the chosen image of Bandera upon the public space in highly visible terms. It suggests that the campaign in favor of memorializing Bandera can best be understood in performative terms. It is in depicting Bandera as a hero of Ukraine that Bandera becomes a hero of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article synthesizes Wimmer's and Brubaker's processual approach to analyzing ethnic groups with Jenkins and Bentley's practice-based theories of ethnicity to explain the role played by socio-emotional experiences and practical concerns in Carpatho-Rusyns, both mobilizing as an ethnic group as well as resisting such mobilization. Data were gathered from interviews and participant observation during the eight months of fieldwork in 10 different villages, towns, and cities in the Prešov region of Slovakia and the Zakarpattia oblast of Ukraine. Carpatho-Rusyns live in an area where borders have changed frequently and where religions, states, and political movements have encouraged the inhabitants’ assimilation to a new or larger group. Rusyns tend to describe ethnicity as instrumentalist theorists do, that is, something largely produced as a result of struggles over territory, resources, and political power. Nevertheless, they evince a profound emotional connection to their language, land, and spirituality. This emotional connection manifests itself among “ethnopolitical entrepreneurs” as well as among the general population, but only motivates explicit political organization among the former. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article analyzes how the Poles and Jews who disappeared from the western Ukrainian city of L'viv as a result of the Second World War are remembered in the city today. It examines a range of commemorative practices, from monuments and museums to themed cafes and literature, and analyzes how these practices interact to produce competing mnemonic narratives. In this respect, the article argues for an understanding of the city as a complex text consisting of a diverse range of mutually interdependent mnemonic media produced by a range of actors. The article focuses in particular on the ways in which Ukrainian nationalist narratives interact with the memory of the city's “lost others.” The article also seeks to understand L'viv's memory culture through comparison with a range of Polish cities that have faced similar problems with commemorating vanished communities, but have witnessed a deeper recognition of these communities than has been the case in L'viv. The article proposes reasons for the divergences between the memory cultures of L'viv and that found in Polish cities, and attempts to outline the gradual processes by which L'viv's Polish and Jewish pasts might become more widely integrated into the city's memory culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As Pussy Riot has changed the face of political protest in Russia, to the south, Ukraine has seen the emergence of Femen, famous for their topless protests against everything from sex tourism and trafficking to hot water shut-offs in Kyiv to sexism in the Ukrainian government to Putin's visits to Ukraine. Their concurrent appearance in the post-Soviet sphere encourages a discussion around the mobilization of sexuality as protest in the region. Both groups appropriate sexual language and imagery as well as physical sexuality in protest of their current regimes. This article engages the question of similarities between the two groups’ efforts and considers what differences structure their political goals and philosophies. What potential does the global visibility of these groups have to influence an emerging women's movement, and, more generally, how can sexuality be harnessed as a unifying force in anti-government activism in post-socialist Russia and Ukraine? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: The present paper aimed to explore the neuropsychiatric characteristics of the antiterrorism (ATO) combatants in the Donets Basin (Donbass) and to propose therapeutic strategies for managing their mental healthcare., Methods: A total of 54 ATO combatants were included in our study and compared with four groups of subjects exposed to other emergencies, including the Chernobyl disaster and the war in Afghanistan. The neuropsychiatric features were assessed through psychopathological assessments, neurological examinations, and quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG)., Results: The ATO combatants were characterized by low health self-estimation, somatic concerns, a high prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, insomnia, depression, social dysfunction, mild cognitive impairment, and neurological soft signs, similar to individuals involved in the Chernobyl disaster and veterans of the Afghan War. Quantitative EEG showed abnormalities suggestive of irritation of the corticolimbic system and diencephalic structures. Some post-conflict personality changes in ATO combatants were recorded. The treatment of ATO combatants included a comprehensive strategy: from psychotropic drugs to different psychotherapies., Conclusions: On the basis of 30 years of experience in the management of the consequences of Chernobyl disaster and the available studies on war veterans, the authors proposed a method for assessment and an approach to providing mental healthcare for ATO combatants, refugees, and migrants from the Donbass, which perhaps can be used as guidelines for other conflicts. Taken together, the findings of the study suggest that voluntary participation in war may decrease but does not eliminate the risk of developing the neuropsychiatric consequences caused by such conflicts. A comprehensive strategy-one that would encompass psychopharmacological, psychological, and rehabilitation techniques-seems to be the most successful approach to managing the main symptoms and disorders involved.